Page 13 of Roma King
I pick up the glass on my bedside table and I drain it, my hands shaky and unsteady. My mouth is still dry, my tongue like sandpaper, so I swing my legs out of bed and pad to the kitchen, filling the glass from the cooler next to the fridge—an exorbitant luxury I’ve allowed myself, since the rusty pipes in the Bakers’ makes the water taste like shit. Armed with my fresh glass of water, I get back into bed, nestle down into the blankets, get comfortable, and out of my bedroom window, down on street level…
…a phone begins to ring.
Thephone.
I sit up.
I blink.
Do not freak out, Zara. Donotfreak out.
It’s too late for that. It took me hours to fall asleep.Hours. And now that damned payphone is going stop me from snatching another hour or two before the sun rises? I don’t fucking think so. I’m going to take out the stupid fucking payphone, and then the entire apartment building. Even Hitchin’s is going to go up in flames.
No…
Fucking…
More.
Hurling back the covers, I get up and jam my feet into the pair of sneakers I kicked off beside the bed. Do I care that I’m in my pajamas? Nope. Does it matter that my hair is a royal mess? Negative. I could be naked and covered in green body paint like a goddamn leprechaun and it wouldn’t mattered at this point. Paul from Cyscom had been useless in resolving the matter of the ringing payphone, but he did make one fairly reasonable suggestion: why not just pick it up? He proposed that I politely tell the caller they had the wrong number, but now, pushed to the point of insanity, close to tearing out every hair on my head by the root, and so sleep deprived that I’ve forgotten my own name, I have something else in mind.
My feet slip out of the back of my sneakers as I storm out of the apartment. My heart’s firing like a piston as I charge down the stairs, down the hall, and out of the building.
When I step out onto the street, I think the ringing’s stopped for a second, but then the shrill sound erupts out of the payphone, cutting through the otherwise silent night air. It’s like nails down a chalk board. Like biting down on a cotton wool ball between my front teeth.
I narrow my eyes, glaring at the payphone.
Five short strides land me right in front of the thing. I grab hold of the handset, ripping it from its cradle, and I hold it up to my ear. “No! No more. I think we’ve all had enough now, thank you very much!” My voice rises higher and higher, until it’s no more than a rush of angry air. “Y’know, there are people in this neighborhood who like to sleep. People who have jobs. People who like a little peace and quiet when they climb into their beds at the end of a twelve-hour shift. And here you are, calling, and calling, andcalling, without a single thought to anyone else, because you’re bored and you think it’s fu—”
“911. What is your emergency?”
The oxygen flees my lungs.
What the…?
There’s a crackling, a rustle of static distorting the line, but I know what I heard. I say those words a hundred times a night. Sometimes more. But I’ve never heard anyone else say those words tome.
This is weird. Beyond weird. There’s a fault in the telephone system somewhere, clearly; emergency calls are being rerouted to this payphone or something. It must be a seriously messed up glitch to make the phone actually ring on this end, then disconnect the call, but…it kind of makes sense. “Hey, I’m sorry, I think there’s been some kind of error. I didn’t place an emergency call. The payph—”
“Hello?”The small, scared voice on the other end of the line cuts me off. A thousand pins and needles bite into my skin all at once, the hairs standing to attention on the back of my neck. It’s familiar—the voice issodamn familiar that I sway, reaching out to grab hold of the payphone.
Another voice speaks, the first voice again, and electricity jolts upward from my feet, making my head spin. This voice is familiar, too, now. More than familiar.It’s my own voice.
“Hi, there. Is everything okay?”
“Um…I don’t…I don’t know. My big brother is…he isn’t moving.”
“Where are you, sweetie?”
Oh my god.
I cover my open mouth with the back of my hand, turning to look up and down the street. The place is deserted, not a person in sight. No one out walking their dogs. No one stumbling home drunk. Inside Hitchin’s, everything is dark, and even the neon Budweiser sign that hangs over the bar is turned off.
This has to be a joke. Some really fucked up, sick kind of joke. I’m listening to a recording of the Petrov call—the very same call Detective Holmes told me was corrupted and irretrievable. Someone is playing it down the phone to meright now.
“We’re at home.” The little boy’s voice is reedy and soft, the panic in his voice harrowing.
“Where are your mommy and daddy?”
